Refining Green Political Economy: From Ecological Modernisation to Economic Security and Sufficiency

Analyse & Kritik 28/2006 ( c© Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart) p. 250–275

John Barry/Peter Doran

Refining Green Political Economy: From Ecologi-cal Modernisation to Economic Security and Suffi-ciency

Abstract: Perhaps the most problematic dimension of the ‘triple bottom line’ under-standing of sustainable development has been the ‘economic’ dimension. Much of thethinking about the appropriate ‘political economy’ to underpin or frame sustainabledevelopment has been either utopian (as in some ‘green’ political views) or an attemptto make peace with ‘business as usual’ approaches. This article suggests that ‘eco-logical modernisation’ is the dominant conceptualisation of ‘sustainable development’within the UK, and illustrates this by looking at some key ‘sustainable development’policy documents from the UK Government. We take the view that the discourse of‘ecological modernisation’ has provided discursive terrain for both pragmatic policymakers and a range of views on sustainable development, from weak to strong. In par-ticular, the article suggests that the discourse of ‘economic security’ and ‘sufficiency’can be used as a way of articulating a radical, robust and principled understandingof sustainable development, which offers a normatively compelling and policy-relevantpath to outlining a ‘green political economy’ to underpin sustainable development.

0. Introduction

“Economics is an overall, absolute essential. The laws of supply anddemand come pretty close to absolute truth—or to absolute reality—as you do in this world. If that’s what you mean by totalitarianism,then I plead guilty.” (Sir Mark Moody Stuart, former Director ofShell, in Hinton and Robinson 2002).1

One of the most problematic and underdeveloped areas of early green/sustainabledevelopment thinking has been its economic analysis. For example, what ana-lyses there was within the green political canon was largely utopian—usuallybased on an argument for the complete transformation of society and economyas the only way to deal with ecological catastrophe, often linked to a critiqueof the socio-economic failings of capitalism that echoed a broadly radical Marx-ist/socialist or anarchist analysis. However, this gap within green thinking has

1 The quotation from Mark Moody Stuart is taken from the publication, Words Misun-derstood, by Lucy Hinton and Jonathan Robinson (Somoho, Resurgence, New EconomicsFoundation 2002). The publication was distributed at the World Summit on Sustainable De-velopment in Johannesburg in 2002.

Refining Green Political Economy 251

recently been filled by a number of scholars, activists, think tanks, and envi-ronmental NGOs who have outlined various models of green political economyto underpin sustainable development’s political aims, principles and objectives,which are entirely compatible with the language of ‘ecological modernisation’.

The aim of this article is to offer a draft of a realistic, but critical, version ofgreen political economy to underpin the economic dimensions of radical viewsof sustainable development. It is written explicitly with a view to encouragingothers to respond to it in the necessary collaborative effort to think through thisaspect of sustainable development. Our position is informed by two importantobservations. As a sign of our times, the crises that we are addressing under thebanner of sustainable development (however inadequately) render the distinc-tion between what is ‘realistic’ and ‘radical’ problematic. It seems to us that theonly realistic course is to revisit the most basic assumptions embedded withinthe dominant model of development and economics. Realistically the only long-term option available is radical. Secondly, we cannot build or seek to create asustainable economy ab nihilo, but must begin—in an agonistic fashion—fromwhere we are, with the structures, institutions, modes of production, laws, reg-ulations and so on that we have. We make this point in Ireland with a storyabout the motorist who stops at the side of the road to ask directions, only tobe told: “Now Ma’m, I wouldn’t start from here if I were you.”

This does not mean simply accepting these as immutable or set in stone—after all, some of the current institutions, principles and structures underpinningthe dominant economic model are the very causes of unsustainable development—but we do need to recognise that we must work with (and ‘through’—in theterms of the original German Green Party’s slogan of “marching through theinstitutions”) these existing structures as well as changing and reforming andin some cases abandoning them as either unnecessary or positively harmful tothe creation and maintenance of a sustainable economy and society. Moreover,we have a particular responsibility under the current dominant economic trendsto name the neo-liberal project as the hegemonic influence on economic think-ing and practice. In the words of Bourdieu/Wacquant (2001), neoliberalism isthe new ‘planetary vulgate’, which provides the global context for much of thecontemporary political and academic debate on sustainable development. Forexample, there is a clear hierarchy of trade (WTO) over the environment (Multi-lateral Environmental Agreements) in the international rules-based systems. Atthe boundaries or limits of the sustainable development debate in both the UKand the European Union it is also evident that the objectives of competitivenessand trade policy are sacrosanct. As Tim Luke (1999) has observed, the rela-tive success or failure of national economies in head-to-head global competitionis taken by ‘geo-economics’ as the definitive register of any one nation-state’swaxing or waning international power, as well as its rising or falling industrialcompetitiveness, technological vitality and economic prowess. In this context,many believe ecological considerations can, at best, be given only meaninglesssymbolic responses, in the continuing quest to mobilise the Earth’s materialresources.

Our realism is rooted in the demos. The realism with which this paper is

252 John Barry and Peter Doran

concerned to promote recognises that the path to an alternative economy andsociety must begin with a recognition of the reality that most people (in theWest) will not democratically vote (or be given the opportunity to vote) for acompletely different type of society and economy overnight. This is true even asthe merits of a ‘green economy’ are increasingly recognised and accepted by mostpeople as the logical basis for safeguards and guarantees for their basic needsand aspirations (within limits). The realistic character of the thinking behindthis article accepts that consumption and materialistic lifestyles are here to stay.(The most we can probably aspire to is a widening and deepening of popularmovements towards ethical consumption, responsible investment, and fair trade.)And indeed there is little to be gained by proposing alternative economic systemswhich start from a complete rejection of consumption and materialism. The ap-peal to realism is in part an attempt to correct the common misperception (andself-perception) of green politics and economics requiring an excessive degree ofself-denial and a puritanical asceticism (see Goodin 1992, 18; Allison 1991, 170–78). While rejecting the claim that green political theory calls for the completedisavowal of materialistic lifestyles, it is true that green politics does require thecollective re-assessment of such lifestyles, and does require new economic signalsand pedagogical attempts to encourage a delinking—in the minds of the generalpopulus—of the ‘good life’ and the ‘goods life’. This does not mean that weneed necessarily require the complete and across the board rejection of materi-alistic lifestyles. It must be the case that there is room and tolerance in a greeneconomy for people to choose to live diverse lifestyles—some more sustainablethan others—so long as these do not ‘harm’ others, threaten long-term ecolog-ical sustainability or create unjust levels of socio-economic inequalities. Thus,realism in this context is in part another name for the acceptance of a broadly‘liberal’ or ‘post-liberal’ (but certainly not anti-liberal) green perspective.2

1. Setting Out

At the same time, while critical of the ‘abstract’ and ‘unrealistic’ utopianismthat peppers green and radical thinking in this area, we do not intend to rejectutopianism. Indeed, with Oscar Wilde we agree that a map of the world that doesnot have utopia on it, isn’t worth looking at. The spirit in which this article iswritten is more in keeping with framing green and sustainability concerns withina ‘concrete utopian’ perspective or what the Marxist geographer David Harvey(1996, 433–435) calls a “utopianism of process”, to be distinguished from “closed”,blueprint-like and abstract utopian visions. Accordingly, the model of greenpolitical economy outlined here is in keeping with Steven Lukes’ suggestion thata concrete utopianism depends on the ‘knowledge of a self-transforming present,not an ideal future’ (Lukes 1984, 158).

It accepts the current dominance of one particular model of green political

2 On the relationship between ‘liberalism’ (and liberal democracy) and green politics andsustainability, see Eckersley 1992; Barry/Wissenburg 2001; Hailwood 2004; Wissenburg 2004;Bell 2002.


economy—namely ‘ecological modernisation’ (hereafter referred to EM)—as thepreferred ‘political economy’ underpinning contemporary state and market formsof sustainable development, and further accepts the necessity for green politicsto positively engage in the debates and policies around EM from a strategic (aswell as a normative) point of view. However, it is also conscious of the limits andproblems with ecological modernisation, particularly in terms of its technocratic,supply-side and reformist ‘business as usual’ approach, and seeks to explore thepotential to radicalise EM or use it as a ‘jumping off’ point for more radicalviews of greening the economy. Ecological modernisation is a work in progress;and that’s the point.

The article begins by outlining EM in theory and practice, specifically inrelation to the British state’s ‘sustainable development’ policy agenda underNew Labour.3 While EM as currently practised by the British state is ‘weak’and largely turns on the centrality of ‘innovation’ and ‘eco-efficiency’, the paperthen goes on to investigate in more detail the role of the market within cur-rent conceptualisations of EM and other models of green political economy. Inparticular, a potentially powerful distinction (both conceptually and in policydebates) between ‘the market’ and ‘capitalism’ has yet to be sufficiently exploredand exploited as a starting point for the development of radical, viable and at-tractive conceptions of green political economy as alternatives to both EM andthe orthodox economic paradigm. We contend that there is a role for the mar-ket in innovation and as part of the ‘governance’ for sustainable developmentin which eco-efficiency and EM of the economy is linked to non-ecological de-mands of green politics and sustainable development such as social and globaljustice, egalitarianism, democratic regulation of the market and the conceptual(and policy) expansion of the ‘economy’ to include social, informal and non-cash economic activity and a progressive role for the state (especially at thelocal/municipal level). Here we suggest that the ‘environmental’ argument orbasis of green political economy in terms of the need for the economy to becomemore resource efficient, minimise pollution and waste and so on, has largely beenwon. What that means is that no one is disputing the need for greater resourceproductivity, energy and eco-efficiency. Both state and corporate/business actorshave accepted the environmental ‘bottom line’ (often rhetorically, but nonethe-less important) as a conditioning factor in the pursuit of the economic ‘bottomline’.

However, what has been less remarked upon is the social ‘bottom line’ andthe centrality of this non-environmental set of principles and policy objectives togreen political economy. In particular, the argument for lessening socio-economicinequality, and redistributive policies to do this, have not been as prominentwithin green political economy and models of sustainable development as theyperhaps should be. One of the reasons for focusing on the ‘social bottom line’ isto suggest that the distinctiveness and critical relevance of a distinctly ‘green’(as opposed to ‘environmental’ or ‘ecological’) political economy will increasinglydepend on developing a political agenda around these non-environmental/non-

3 While we use the UK as our main point of reference, the general outline of our argumentis applicable to other ‘ecologically modernising’ states.


resource policy areas as states, businesses and other political parties convergearound the EM agenda of reconciling the environmental and economic bottomlines, through an almost exclusive focus on the environmental bottom line. Itis on developing a radical political and economic agenda around the social andeconomic bottom lines that green political economy needs to focus.

2. Quality of life

It is for this reason that the final part of the paper we look at the long-standinggreen commitment to re-orientate the economy towards enhancing and beingjudged by ‘quality of life’ and ‘well-being’. The more recent discourse around‘economic security’ is then discussed as building upon and related to the qualityof life perspective, and is viewed as a potentially important driver and policyobjective for green political economy in practice, in succinctly presenting thegreen economic case for a new type of economy, in which redistribution andreducing socio-economic inequality is central. The model of green political econ-omy presented here is defined in part by its commitment to ‘economic security’,which has the strategic political advantage of presenting a positive and attrac-tive discourse for sustainable development arguments, unlike the (still prevalent)negative and often disempowering discourse of ‘limits to growth’, which does notof course mean denying the reality of limits (which are not just ecological, butinclude social, cultural and psychological and biological dimensions). The pointis that using the language and analysis of economic security is a more attrac-tive and compelling way of arguing and presenting the case for a less growth-orientated economy and consumption-orientated society and one that aims forputting quality of life at the heart of economic thinking and policy.

3. Ecological Modernisation

Dryzek (1997, 125) has probably come nearest the truth about sustainable de-velopment when he described it as a “discourse rather than a concept which canor should be defined with any precision”. A more useful approach when it comesto an exploration of policy implications is the concept of “ecological moderni-sation”. The concept of ecological modernisation was developed in the 1980smainly through the initial work of the German social scientists Joseph Huber(1982) and Martin Jänicke (1991).

The basic argument is that the central institutions of modern society canbe transformed in order to avoid the ecological crisis. It is our contention thatthere are few advocates of sustainable development—from whatever end of the‘weak’/’strong’ spectrum they come—who cannot usefully engage on the discur-sive terrain or narrative set out by advocates of E.M. Hajer (1995) links ecolog-ical modernisation and sustainable development together such that the latter isthe ‘central story line’ of the policy discourse of sustainable development.


Gouldson and Murphy (1996) have outlined three central projects that mustform the heart of this switchover:

1. The restructuring of production and consumption towards ecological goals.This involves the development and diffusion of clean production technolo-gies and decoupling of economic development from the relevant resourceinputs, resource use and emissions;

2. ‘Economising ecology’ by placing an economic value on nature and intro-ducing structural tax reform; and

3. Integrating environmental policy goals into other policy areas.

Just as social and labour demands have placed constraints on purely economicrationale for production and consumption, so the environment is now recognisedas a qualifier of traditional economic rationality.4

4. Strong and Weak Versions of Ecological Modernisation

Hajer (1995) has described strong ecological modernisation as reflexive ecologi-cal modernisation, whereby political and economic development proceed on thebasis of critical self-awareness involving public scrutiny and democratic control,while weak ecological modernisation involves a lifeline for capitalist economiesthreatened by ecological crisis.

‘Weak’ ecological modernisation ‘Strong’ ecological modernisationTechnological solutions to environ-mental problems

Broad changes to institutional andeconomic structure of society incor-porating ecological concerns

Technocratic/corporatist styles ofpolicy making by scientific, economicand political elites

Open, democratic decision makingwith participation and involvement

Restricted to developed nations whouse ecological modernisation to con-solidate their global economic advan-tages

Concerned with the international di-mensions of the environment and de-velopment

Imposes a single, closed-end frame-work on political and economic de-velopment

A more open-ended approach with nosingle view, but multiple possibilitieswith ecological modernisation provid-ing orientation

Characteristics of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ ecological modernisation (based onChristoff1996, 490).

4A related argument here is the way in which the possible emergence of ‘ecologically mod-ernising states’ is related to the early evolution of ‘welfare states’ due to pressure from organisedlabour. See Meadowcroft 2005.


5. Ecological Modernisation in Theory and Practice inBritainalism

The New Labour government is clearly committed to an EM approach to sus-tainable development. In a speech on sustainable development Tony Blair statedthat, “tackling climate change or other environmental challenges need not limitgreater economic opportunity . . . economic development, social justice and en-vironmental modernisation must go hand in hand”.5

This ‘win-win’ logic has also been echoed by the Deputy Prime Minister JohnPrescott (2003) who in a speech to the Fabian Society held that:

“There is a widespread view that environmental damage is the pricewe have to pay for economic progress . . . Modern environmentalismrecognises that . . . an efficient, clean economy will mean more, notless economic growth and prosperity . . . Treating the environmentwith respect will not impede economic progress, it will help identifyareas of inefficiency and waste and so unleash whole new forces ofinnovation.”

Like EM discourse, New Labour sustainable development policy rhetoricadopts the language of business and orthodox economic growth, emphasisingthe business case for sustainability by linking environmental management withgreater resource efficiency, cost reduction and enhanced competitiveness. Typ-ical of this is the Department for Trade and Investment (2000, 9), which notesthat, “The environment is a business opportunity . . . there are economic benefitsin reducing waste, avoiding pollution and using resources more efficiently. . . .Reducing pollution through better technology will almost always lower costs orraise product value/differentiation.”

This business case for rendering orthodox neo-classical economic growth com-patible with environmental considerations can also be found outside Westmin-ister in the devolved adminstrations. In Scotland, the Scottish Executive’s En-terprise Minister Jim Wallace has recently announced a ‘Green Jobs Strategy’,stating that:

“Economic growth and job creation can and should go hand in handwith promoting Scotland’s natural environment and, through ex-ports, sustaining good environmental practice overseas. A GreenJobs Strategy will focus our efforts on delivering sustainable growth,which will generate employment while improving our environmentand raising living standards across the country. As well as creatingnew business opportunities, better waste management and more effi-cient use of resources benefits the bottom line—raising productivityand making a big contribution to environmental targets.” (ScottishExecutive 2005)6

5 Tony Blair MP, ‘Sustainable Development helps the poorest’, http://www.labour.org.uk/tbsd/ (accessed 13 June 2005).

6 Other examples of this focus on the ‘win win’ of sustainable development can


The notion that orthodox economic growth, employment investment patternsand the cross-sectoral goals of sustainable development might be in serious ten-sion is excluded from the government’s rhetoric on the environment and the‘greening of the economy’; it is certainly not presented as a possibly problematicissue for industrial production processes or for global capitalism or the new or-thodoxy of export-led growth. Instead, environmental protection and economicgrowth are portrayed as a positive-sum game, a ‘business opportunity’, sug-gesting that EM is the basis upon which current debates on environmental andsustainable development policy in the UK are founded (Barry/Paterson 2004).

EM as the principle ‘policy telos’ (Levy/Wissenburg 2004) for environmentaland sustainable development policies within the UK (but also in other Euro-pean states) stresses innovative policy tools such as market-based incentivesand voluntary agreements that ‘steer’ businesses towards eco-efficient practices,which do not undermine ‘competitiveness’ and ideally should create new mar-kets, employment, investment opportunities and technological advances. Thisdoes not rule out legislative sanctions, but EM strongly emphasises voluntaryaction and ‘partnership’ forms of environmental governance, which is in per-fect keeping with not just New Labour’s view of the role of the self-limitingrole of state via-a-vis the market and market actors, but with other govern-ments in Europe, North America and international institutions such as the IMFand World Bank. Having established the imperative for environmental improve-ment with its policies, the state also plays a key role in improving the capacityof industry to respond to that imperative via, for instance, public investmentin clean technology and research and development programmes and provisionof information on environmental best practice, such as the recently announced‘Environment Direct’ initiative contained with the latest sustainable develop-ment strategy, or funded programmes in energy efficiency such as the EnergySavings Trust, or programmes to encourage clean technology innovation, suchas the Green Technology Challenge and the Sustainable Technology Initiative.Other EM initiatives include the state establishing or supporting new ‘networkorganisations’ tasked with promoting and encouraging ‘win-win’ environmentalsolutions to business, such as the WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Pro-gramme) aimed at pump priming the market for recycled materials, or otheragencies charged with informing and helping businesses (especially the small andmedium sector) in respect to environmental legislation (particularly EuropeanUnion directives), or other dissemination initiatives such as the EnvironmentalTechnology Best Practice Programme and the Energy Efficiency Best PracticeProgramme within the DTI.

Market-based solutions have become a favoured policy tool to encourage eco-efficiency in the UK, and various environmental taxes have been introduced such

also be found in other countries. For example, the 2002 German National Strategyfor Sustainable Development which stressed that, ‘innovations are the mainsprings ofeconomic growth, employment and improvements in environmental protection’. (2002,276). Deutsche Bundesregierung (2002) Perspectives for Germany—Our Strategy forSustainable Development. Available at http://www.bundesregierung.de/Anlage259155/Nationale-Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie-Englische-Fassung.pdf (accessed 18th September2005).


as the climate change levy, congestion charging in inner London, the landfill tax,aggregates tax and the fuel duty levy. These market-based approaches basedon a voluntary and partnership approach are hall-marks of the EM portfolioof ‘policy drivers’ of UK sustainable development, in comparison to the morelegalistic approach of other European countries such as Germany.

One important element of such innovation is to create ‘closed-loop’ produc-tion, whereby waste materials are minimised and wastes themselves then becomeinputs to other industrial processes—central aspects of the emerging interdisci-plinary science of ‘industrial ecology’. The development of new markets, newcommodities and services are crucial to creating the possibility of continued cap-ital accumulation and the imperative to attract foreign direct investment (FDI)while other markets are being restricted. This efficiency-oriented approach toenvironmental problems is central to understanding how EM is both attractiveto state and business elites and managers, and some environmental NGOs.

But it is important to point out that EM processes tend to require significantstate intervention. For some EM writers, there is a reliance on a notion of an‘environmental Kuznets curve’, whereby the ecological impacts of growth gothrough a process where they increase but beyond a certain point of economicoutput start to decline.7 For most, this is not likely to occur, except in relation tocertain measures of environmental quality, without significant state interventionto enable shifts in economic behaviour. It is thus not perhaps an accident thatEM discourse has arisen principally in social democratic countries in continentalEurope where corporatist policy styles are still well established. EM as a ‘policyideology’ has largely been developed in government programmes and policy stylesand traditions, particularly those of Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Japanand the European Union (Weale 1992, 76–85; Dryzek 1997, 137–41). And whilein the European countries where some of the policy outcomes associated with EMstrategies, notably voluntary agreements or public-private partnerships, are oftenregarded as elements in a ‘neo-liberalisation’ of those countries, nevertheless theirdevelopment still occurs within a style of policy development and implementationwhich is corporatist.8

Corporatist arrangements are therefore usually regarded to be the most con-ducive political conditions for successful environmental policy reform (Young2000; Dryzek 1997; Scruggs 1999). On this view the state policy-elites act asbrokers and prime movers in encouraging interest groups, trades unions, indus-try, consumer groups and sections of the environmental movement, to accept

7 The ‘environmental Kuznets curve’ (EKC) approach is the principal site where an at-tempt is made to demonstrate (rather than assert) the potential to combine environmentalimprovements with economic growth. See Ekins 2000 and Cole/Elgar 2000. The basic as-sumption of the EKC analysis is that continued economic growth passes a point beyond whichenvironmental degradation begins to decrease (Ekins 2000, 182–83).

8 By “neo-liberalism” we mean the ideology which promotes the deregulation of markets, therolling back of the state, and the progressive dismantling or ‘hollowing out’ of the welfare state,the opening of domestic markets to the world economy and the creation of the ‘competitionstate’. See Sklair 2001. By corporatism, we mean institutionalised regimes and procedureswhereby the elites and representatives of the state/government of the day, dominant marketinterests and actors and organised labour together ‘corporately’ set the framework of publicpolicy.


the agenda of EM. What then becomes interesting in the UK case we developbelow, is the way that globalisation acts to create potential for EM strategies inthe absence of corporatist political arrangements. One argument similar to EMbut couched in language more common in neo-liberal countries such as the UKand US was popularised in an influential article by Porter and van der Linde(1995). They argue that the assumption of an economy-environment contradic-tion is premised on a static account of costs and fails to account for the dynamiceffect which innovation has on the costs to firms of implementing environmen-tal regulations. Thus policies can be pursued which promote competitivenessfor firms while reducing the environmental impacts of those firms’ operations.Porter and van der Linde emphasise regulation—that state regulation can cre-ate a dynamic of technical innovation by firms which is a ‘win-win’ scenarioin economy-environment terms—but nevertheless the presumed relationship be-tween states and firms is neo-liberal rather than corporatist. However, one mayposit that the lack of corporatist arrangements in the UK may partly explainwhy EM within the UK is almost exclusively concerned with resource efficiencyand technological and supply-side solutions and has little in the way of the po-litical and social aspects of EM one can find in more corporatist states such asAustria or Germany. Nevertheless, there are signs that the private sector—inthe context of climate change—is coming on side with the environmental NGOsto press for regulatory support.9

6. The Limits of Ecological Modernisation

EM of course has its critics. Within EM discourse, advocates of ‘strong’ EMargue that its ‘weak’ variant is inadequate to deal with the challenge of the un-sustainability of the current economic model. Critics of EM in general suggestthat both versions are similarly problematic. In particular, the reliance on a setof technological fixes to solve what are widely seen as political problems is oftenseen as a key weakness, and one of its principal limitations when compared toits sister discourse of sustainable development which has explicit political bar-gains about limits and global justice built in, even in its relatively conservativeversions (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987; Langhelle2000). The focus on efficiency gains is often seen as wildly optimistic where allcurrent experience suggests that in most areas, efficiency gains per unit of con-sumption are usually outstripped by overall increases in consumption. This isanother way of saying that the notion of an environmental Kuznets curve, whichunderpins claims for the potential compatibility of growth and environmental

9 Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have been joined by the UK Business Council forSustainable Energy and eight energy companies including United Utilities and British Gasto demand the Government puts its words into action. The call comes in a joint letter tothe Secretaries of State for the Environment, Transport and Trade and Industry. The letter,copied to the Prime Minister, John Prescott and Gordon Brown, urges the Government totake advantage of the current review of the UK Climate Change Programme to embrace the“bold and practical policy framework” required “in order to move to a low-carbon future”. SeeFriends of the Earth Press Release, ‘Energy Companies Join Greens in Call on Government’,29 July 2005.


sustainability, is implausible; drawing as such arguments do on a narrow set ofprocesses and measures of environmental quality. But EM discourse is explicitabout not attempting to limit overall levels of consumption. Indeed, one of themain points of this article is to suggest that if EM is to be used as basis fordeveloping a realistic but critical model of green political economy, EM needs tobe integrated with a model of sustainable political economy in which consump-tion is also addressed within the context of a more radical economic vision whichfocuses on economic security and quality of life, rather than orthodox economicgrowth, and associated policies to increase formally paid employment, attractforeign direct investment and fully integrate local and national economies intothe global one. Of course whether this is possible (or desirable) is open to debate.

7. Ecological Modernisation and the UK’s SustainableDevelopment Strategy

The recently launched New Labour’s sustainable development strategy, Securingthe Future: Delivering the United Kingdom Sustainable Development Strategy, afollow-up the the 1999 strategy document, A Better Quality of Life is a timelypublication to take stock and assess the role of EM within official governmentthinking on the transition to the a more sustainable economy and society (DE-FRA 1999; DEFRA 2005).

Of particular interest is Chapter 3 of the Strategy, ‘One Planet Economy:Sustainable Production and Consumption’. While containing some positive fea-tures, not least the over-arching idea of living within a sustainable ‘ecologi-cal footprint’; greater support for ecological innovation and resource productivetechnologies; enabling us to ‘achieve more with less’ and in relation to the keybut challenging issue of consumption, the report while woefully inadequate, doesat least place the issue of tackling and adddressing consumption alongside themore long-standing productive focus of United Kingdom sustainable develop-ment strategy. The strategy document studiously avoids what many would seeas the real issue with consumption—i. e. how to reduce it rather than simplyfocusing on making it ‘greener’ or lessen its environmental impact. The reportnotes that, “there will also be a need for households, businesses and the pub-lic sector to consume more efficiently and differently, so that consumption fromrising incomes is not accompanied by rising environmental impacts or social in-justice. The challenge is big. But so too are the opportunties for innovation tobuild new markets, products and services.” (DEFRA 2005, 51)

At no point in the report is the question of reducing or maintaining consump-tion discussed, or relating consumption and patterns of consumption to qualityof life or well-being.

The extent of government action or policy in respect to consumption amountsto a series of ‘processes’ such as

• building an evidence base around the environmental impacts arising fromhouseholds and how patterns of use can be influenced

• woking on a new information service—‘Environment Direct’ . . .


• through a refocused Environmental Action Fund . . .

• delivering a large-scale deliberative forum to explore public views on sus-tainable consumption and lifestyles . . .

• the new Round Table on Sustainable Consumption. (DEFRA 2005, 52)

Of these, perhaps most hope lies in the deliberative forum and the Round Ta-ble in raising the central but complex and difficult issue of reducing consumptionand not simply changing current patterns of consumption per se, which leavesthe quantity of consumption unchanged or is premised on increasing consump-tion. Before going on to look at the way in which the document articulates anEM view, it is worth briefly looking at the role of consumption both within EMas the dominnat viuew of sustainable development within government thinking.

One of the limitations with EM as many authors and critics have pointedout is its focus—for the most part—on the production side of economic activityand its impact on the environment—leading to its main focus on finding waysof increasing resource efficiency (Barry 2003). What is missing from the EMagenda is a concern with sustainable consumption to balance with sustainableproduction patterns and technologies. Indeed, we suggest that the effectiveintegration of measures to encourage consumption within the EM frameworkwill be a real litmus test. When we have achieved this, the EM framework willmore convincingly point towards a robust model of green political economy whichis more consistent with basic green political and normative goals (particularly,as indicated in the concluding sections of this paper, if EM can be framed withinan overarching policy approach to sustainable development aimed at producing‘economic security’ and ‘well-being’ rather than orthodox ‘economic growth’).10

A concept that will have to be introduced and mainstreamed within the dis-course on EM will be ‘sufficiency’. This concept is unlike ‘eco-efficiency’ andother production-side issues addressed by the ecological modernisation debates.Sufficiency will require the embedding of new normative commitments at theheart of the democratic social contract between Government and people. It can-not be imposed or managed into existence by Government. The recent debate onsustainable consumption in the UK has opened up the possibility of introducing‘sufficiency’ as an important element of the ecological modernisation process.There is an emerging recognition that certain changes in popular behaviour willnecessitate innovative democratic processes if we are to negotiate new socialnorms and unfreeze habitual behaviours.

8. Motivivating and Facilitating Change

The thinking behind Tim Jackson’s recent report for the Sustainable Develop-ment Research Network entitled Motivating Sustainable Consumption seems to

10 In a paper published by the Cabinet Office’s Strategy Unit in 2002, Life Satisfaction:The State of Knowledge and Implications for Government, Nick Donovan and David Halpernhighlight the increasing discrepancy between per capita GDP and life satisfaction, between1970–1997.


have influenced the UK Strategy’s focus on providing deliberative fora and gov-ernment leading by example in terms of public procurement, as the main policycontribution towards addressing sustainable consumption (Jackson 2005).The conclusions of his report are as follows:

“Changing behaviour is difficult. The evidence in this review is un-equivocal in that respect. Overcoming problems of consumer lock-in, unfreezing old habits and forming new ones, understanding thecomplexity of the social logic in which individual behaviours are em-bedded: all these are pre-requisites for successful behaviour changeinitiatives. But in spite of all appearances this complex terrain isnot intractable to policy intervention. Policy already intervenes inhuman behaviour both directly and indirectly in numerous ways . . .a genuine understanding of the social and institutional context ofconsumer action opens out a much more creative vista for policyinnovation than has hitherto been recognised. Expanding on theseopportunities is the new challenge for sustainable consumption pol-icy.

In following up on these possibilities, Government can draw someclear guidance from the evidence base. In the first place, leadingby example is paramount. The evidence suggests that discursive,elaborative processes are a vital element in behaviour change—inparticular in negotiating new social norms and ‘unfreezing’ habitualbehaviours. This shift from ‘deliberation’ to ‘elaboration’ as a work-ing model of behavioural change can be seen as a key message of thisstudy.” (Jackson 2005, 132–33)

He goes on to point out that there is perhaps some hope to be found in moreparticipatory community-based approaches to changing patterns of consump-tion. According to him,

“In particular, the relevance of facilitating conditions, the role oflock-in and the critical importance of the social and cultural con-text emerge as key features of the debate. The role of community inmediating and moderating individual behaviours is also clear. Thereare some strong suggestions that participatory community-based pro-cesses could offer effective avenues for exploring pro-environmentaland pro-social behavioural change. There are even some examplesof such initiatives which appear to have some success. What ismissing from this evidence base, at present, is unequivocal proofthat community-based initiatives can achieve the level of behaviouralchange necessary to meet environmental and social objectives.” (Jack-son 2005, 133).

This does seem to suggest that there is a role not just for deliberative,community-based processes (as indicated in the DEFRA strategy document)as enabling processes to overcome the obstacles to more sustainable patterns


of consumption, but also of the possible role of community-based initiatives fordelivering sustainable consumption itself. Here, the role of the social economyand community-based enterprises can be seen as important loci for sustainableconsumption as well as sustainable production, suggesting a happy marriagebetween the three bottom lines of sustainable development within this sector.11

Jackson concludes that,

“It is clear from this that behaviour change initiatives are going toencounter considerable resistance unless and until it is possible tosubstitute for these important functions of society in some otherways. In this context, motivating sustainable consumption has to beas much about building supportive communities, promoting inclu-sive societies, providing meaningful work, and encouraging purpose-ful lives as it is about awareness raising, fiscal policy and persuasion.This is not to suggest that Government should be faint-hearted inencouraging and supporting pro-environmental behaviour. On thecontrary, a robust effort is clearly needed; and the evidence reviewedin this study offers a far more creative vista for policy innovationthan has hitherto been recognised.” (Jackson 2005, 133–34).

Whether or not the British state’s existing EM approach to sustainable de-velopment (with its focus on resource efficiency and greening production withina conventional economic model which seeks to promote economic growth andcompetitiveness) can be integrated with a focus on sustainable consumption re-mains to be seen, and the current DEFRA sustainable development strategy canbe seen as indicating some tentative steps in that direction. However, we suggestthat the government’s approach to sustainable consumption as a whole will prob-ably be a version of its approach to private car transport—encouraging peopleto buy (and manufacturers to produce) more fuel-efficient and more ecologicallyresponsibly produced cars, while doing little to regulate their use or provide at-tractive public transport alternatives to reduce their over-use (Barry/Paterson2004).

The judgement of environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth is thatthe New Labour government has produced ‘more green smoke than the Wizardof Oz’. Friends of the Earth, in a press statement in December 2002 claimedthat

“Despite promising to cut traffic levels in 1997, the Government hasdone precious little to achieve this. The cost of motoring has fallenunder Labour, whilst the cost of using buses and trains has risen. TheGovernment abandoned the fuel price escalator following protestsfrom motoring groups. Labour has offered only luke-warm support tothe few local authorities that have introduced congestion-charging.

11 Indeed, the role of the social economy within any realistic but radical conception of greenpolitical economy is something that needs to be recognised and deserves more space than wecan give it here. For further analysis of the potential role of the social economy and socialenterprises as a central aspect of a sustainable economy. See Korten 1995; Mayo/Moore 2001.


Billions of pounds of road-widening schemes were announced lastweek—even though the Government stated in its 1998 TransportWhite Paper ‘people know we cannot build our way out of congestionwith new roads’ .The Government has admitted that road congestionis unlikely to improve by the end of the decade. Since Labour cameto power in 1997, road traffic is estimated to have grown by 7 percent. There has been inadequate funding for transport alternativesto the car.” (Friends of the Earth 2002).

A clear indication of the EM approach adopted in the DEFRA report isthe linking of economic competitiveness, innovation and the environment, build-ing on the Government’s previous 2003 Innovation Review which identified theenvironment as a key driver of innovation (DEFRA 2005, 44). This focus oninnovation, resource efficiency and so-on should be welcomed and is a key partof the EM agenda in general, and the ecologically modernising state in particular(Barry 2003a).

A central aspect of the state in EM is its ‘enabling’, co-ordinating and sup-porting role, in terms of encouraging technological innovation and greater eco-nomic and ecologically efficient use of resources and energy. Through subsidiesand research and development assistance for renewable energy, or investment infuel cell technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology to new forms of environ-mental regulation, setting emissions standards, environmental taxes and otherregulatory mechanisms: “Regulation can be used to drive the process of industrialinnovation with environmental and economic gains realised as a result” (Mur-phy/Gouldson 2000, 43). Indeed, much of the ‘modernisation’ aspect of EM restson the central emphasis on innovation, both technologically as well in productionprocesses and management and distribution systems.12 Smart production sys-tems, ‘doing more with less’, applying novel scientific breakthroughs (for examplein renewable energy, biotechnology and information and communication technol-ogy, such as nanotechnology) and developing and utilising ‘clean’ technologies,are all hallmarks of the modern, dynamic, forward-looking, solutions-focusedcharacter of EM. While the state ‘enables’ and supports innovation, it is left tothe private sector to develop, test and market these new ecologically efficientinnovations and production methods.

However, while the issue of enabling fundamentally new attitudes to con-sumption is not (yet) fully integrated within EM policy and practice, a relatedand perhaps more damning critique from a robust or radical conception of sus-tainable development, is that EM is explicitly viewed as contributing to ratherthan challenging or changing the orthodox economic policy objective of growthin the formal economy as measured by GNP/GDP. In short, EM—at most—caneasily become a policy approach which deals with the effects rather than theunderlying causes of unsustainable development.

12 According to Murphy (2001, 9) “innovation is central to ecological modernisation of pro-duction because it is through innovation and change that environmental concerns can beginto be integrated into production”.


9. Economic Growth Versus Economic Security

The critique of conventional economic growth has been a long-standing positionof green thinking and radical conceptions of sustainable development. Indeed,we would suggest that any plausibly ‘green’ and radical conception of politicaleconomy must articulate some model of qualified if not absolute limit on growth.That is, for a model of political economy to be classed as ‘green’ or sustainable,this critique of conventional, neo-classical economic growth as the main eco-nomic policy objective of any state or society is a sine qua non. Now whilethere are many debates as to understandings and measurements of ‘economicgrowth’ (does growth refer to increases in monetary value or does it refer tophysical/resource measures?), a ‘post-growth’ economy is one that has featuredprominently within green political and economic discourse, most usually asso-ciated with the environmental and political benefits of a less growth orientatedand programmed socio-economic system.A major report by the International Labour Office Economic Security for aBetter World found that economic security coupled with democracy and equalitywere key determinants of well-being and social stability. According to this report

“People in countries that provide citizens with a high level of eco-nomic security have a higher level of happiness on average, as mea-sured by surveys of national levels of life-satisfaction and happiness. . . The most important determinant of national happiness if not in-come level—there is a positive association, but rising income seemsto have little effect as wealthy countries grow more wealthier. Ratherthe key factor is the extent of income security, measured in terms ofincome protection and a low degree of income inequality.” (Interna-tional Labor Organisation 2004)

Such findings give empirical support to long-standing green arguments stress-ing the need for policies to increase well-being and quality of life, rather thanconventionally measured economic growth, rising personal income levels or or-thodox measures of wealth and prosperity.13 This approach also features inHawken, Lovins and Lovins’ (1999) prescription for Natural Capitalism. Theyintroduced four central strategies of natural capitalism, each designed to allowcountries, companies and communities to operate by behaving as if all forms ofcapital were valued. The four are:

1. Radical resource productivity;

2. Biomimicry (reducing wasteful throughputs);

3. Service and flow economy (a shift from an economy of goods and purchasesto one of service and flow, with a shift from the acquisition of goods as a

13 While the most recent UK Sustainable Development strategy is entitled Securing theFuture, it is clear from reading it that the discourse of economic security is not prominent,although as indicated above, in focusing on consumption there is the potential for a moreradical conceptualisation of the economy to be promoted as part and parcel of sustainabledevelopment.


measure of affluence to an economy where the continuous receipt of quality,utility and performance promotes well-being); and

4. Investing in natural capital.

Hawken, Lovins and Lovins envisage a radically altered form of consumptionthat would shift from a valorisation of the ephemeral (Appadurai 2003) to onethat valorises a continuous receipt of quality, utility and performance as promot-ers of well-being. This implies a cultural as well as a technical transformation inour understanding of consumption. Evidence of this shift towards the promotionof an economy which focuses at delivering quality and performance can be seenin some recent research done for the European Commission, which concludedthat, “A sustainable economy will remain out of reach until we change the focusof manufacturing industry from selling material products to selling performance.The watchword is ‘sufficiency’.” (European Commission 2002).

Appadurai (2003, 83) has observed that the inculcation of the pleasure ofephemerality expresses itself at a variety of social and cultural levels: the shortshelf life of products and lifestyles; the speed of fashion change; the velocity ofexpenditure; the polyrhythms of credit, acquisition, and gift; the transience oftelevision-product images; the aura of periodisation that hangs over both prod-ucts and lifestyles in the imagery of mass media. He views the all pervasive searchfor novelty as only a symptom of a deep discipline of consumption in which desire‘is organised’ around an aesthetic of ephemerality. The techniques of the bodyassociated with this modern consumption regime involve what Laura Mulvey(1975) has described as ‘scopophilia’ or the love of gazing, which has arrived ata point where the body of the consumer herself has been rendered potentiallyephemeral and manipulable. Scopophilia stands in interesting contradistinctionwith the ‘economy of regard’ identified by Avner Offer (1997) as a system ofnon-market exchange which has outlived the great transformation, as describedby Polanyi (1947). Offer argues that the intrinsic benefits of social and personalinteraction and reciprocity, summed up in the term regard, continue to thrive ina number of settings e.g. the non-profit sector. This gift economy demands morethan the gaze; it is founded on communication and an acknowledgement that thebenefits of exchange can include the social benefits of the process of reciprocity.Offer recalls that the propensity for sympathy dominates Adam Smith’s Theoryof Moral Sentiments.

The problem for advocates of policies that prioritise de-linking notions ofthe good life with economic growth and unqualified consumption is a tendencyto overlook the way in which dominant economic actors i. e. corporations, ad-vertisers, and retailers, target the insecurities and perceived vulnerabilities of‘consumers’. These actors benefit from and encourage a worldview or medias-cape14 where, to paraphrase Anthony Giddens words, a host of existential choicescome to be negotiated through the prism of consumption.15

14 The mediascape refers to the virtual world of corporate-dominated advertising and in-fotainment where the popular imaginations are forged in image factories and consumption isdriven by a substitution of the ‘good life’ by the ‘goods life’.

15 Although beyond the scope of this paper, it is our view that one needs to look at the psy-


10. Sufficiency = Security

The ILO report confirms the long-standing green critique of economic growth asnecessarily contributing to well-being. It states that, “there is only a weak impactof economic growth on security measured over the longer-term. In other words,rapid growth does not necessarily create better economic security, although itsometimes can do if it is accompanied by appropriate social policies” (ILO 2004,30). Of particular note is that many of the policies the ILO recommends to ac-company an orthodox growth objective go against the neo-liberal/Washingtonconsensus model—premised on increasing the openness national economies toone another, integrating them into the global market and prioritising tradeand Foreign Direct Investment as the main determinants of domestic economicgrowth. The ILO report makes the point that:

"‘For developing countries national level of economic security is in-versely related to capital account openness, implying that it wouldbe sensible for developing countries to delay opening their capitalaccounts until institutional developments and social policies werein place to enable their societies to withstand external shocks. Inother words, countries should postpone opening their financial mar-kets until they have the institutional capacities to handle fluctuationsin confidence and the impact of external economic developments."’(ILO 2004, 34).

At the same time, that a democratic political system has no necessary con-nection with ever increasing levels of material consumption is a touchstone ofgreen democratic arguments, and indeed democratic and egalitarian principlesare at the heart of sustainable development (Barry 1999; Jacobs 1999). Moreimportant to a democratic polity is a well developed ‘democratic culture’, ashared sense of citizenship, plurality and socio-economic and political equality.Plurality and equality are more significant than prosperity as preconditions foran ongoing and vibrant democracy. In other words, a shift away from ‘economicgrowth’ and orthodox understandings of ‘prosperity’ should be taken as an op-portunity by green theory to redefine basic political and economic concepts. Itasks us to consider the possibility that human freedom and a well organisedand governed polity does not depend, in any fundamental sense, on increasinglevels of material affluence. Indeed, there may be a trade-off between democ-racy and orthodox economic growth and a related government policy heavily orexclusively focused on improving material well-being.

chological and cultural determinants of excessive consumption, which are grounded in ‘man-ufactured insecurity’—whether about one’s body shape, sensitivity to peer judgements, orexternally generated and reinforced views of self-other relations that undermine personal orother forms of security. Giddens, in a slightly different vein has written persuasively about theway modernity can undermine ‘ontological security’, but does not connect this with patternsof ‘defensive consumption’ (Giddens 1994, 79). Equally, one of the most powerful forms ofinsecurity is that generated by globalisation which produces endemic or structural insecurityin terms of employment and income.


According to a study by Lauber in the late 1970s, there is evidence to showthat the relatively democratic and liberal and consequently less powerful, Britishstate was an important determinant of the stagnation and decline of its economysince the Second World War (Lauber 1978). Relying on the comparative studiesof Schonfield (1965), he states that, “the governments that have been most suc-cessful in the pursuit of the new [economic] goals have been those which had fewdoubts about the extensive use of non-elected authority, for example, France.The more ‘timid’ governments were less successful” (Lauber 1978, 209). Having‘modernisation’ and the pursuit of orthodox economic growth as one’s highestgoal can lead to non-democratic, illiberal forms of state action, or policies andstyles of governance that at the very least are at odds with a pluralist and liberaldemocratic system.

It needs to be recalled that the ‘free market’ revolution ushered in by thelikes of Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Reagan in the US were also ac-companied by a centralisation and strengthening of the state, and a redrawing ofthe relationship between state and civil society which privileged the former overthe latter. The ‘free market and strong state’ are both still with us, increasinglyintegrated under economic globalisation and those governments—such as NewLabour—that embrace and promote a broadly neo-liberal version of globalisation(Barry/Paterson 2004).

The ILO report quoted earlier provides other evidence of the dangers ofeconomic growth policies that undermine economic (and communal) security.The report finds that

“the global distribution of economic security does not correspond tothe global distribution of income, and that countries in South andSouth-East Asia have a greater share of global economic securitythan their share of the world’s income . . . By contrast, Latin Amer-ican countries provide their citizens with less economic security thancould be expected from their relative income levels. Indeed, beinginsecure has resonance in people’s attitudes, which at times can bedetrimental to their ideas of a decent society. In a recent surveytaken by the Latino barometro in Latin America, 76% of the peoplesurveyed were concerned about not having a job the following year,and a majority said that they would not mind a non-democratic gov-ernment if it could solve their unemployment problems.” (ILO 2004)

So, not only states, but citizens can contemplate and act in non-democraticways in pursuit of orthodox economic modernisation and economic growth ob-jectives. If one values democracy and its values of pluralism, freedom, equalityand so on, then one has to seriously question any putative or enforced connec-tion between its maintenance and further development and orthodox policiesaimed at economic growth.16 The ILO report goes on to note that, “economic

16 At this point the ‘liberal/post-liberal’ character of the model of green political economyoutlined here needs to be again stressed, particularly in the way that, as one of us has arguedelsewhere (Barry 1999), this green, post-liberal model of green political economy requires a


insecurity fosters intolerance and stress, which contribute to social illness andultimately may lead to social violence”. (ILO 2004)

Beyond a certain threshold, greater increases in the latter may be accompa-nied by decreases in the former. An economy less geared towards universalisingand promoting materially affluent lifestyles and consumption may be consis-tent with enhanced democratic practice since the decrease in complexity, socialdivision of labour, inequality and hierarchy, allows the possibility of greater par-ticipation by individuals in the decisions that affect their lives and that of theircommunities. For example, a shift away from economic growth as a central so-cial goal would undermine the justification of socio-economic inequalities on thegrounds that they are necessary ‘incentives’ to achieve economic growth. Atthe same time, as early proponents of the steady-state economy pointed out, theshift from a society geared towards economic growth, to a society where materialgrowth is not a priority may lead to more extensive redistributive measures, apoint made many years ago by forerunners of green economic thinking such asHerman Daly (1973). This redistributive aspect to the sustainability critiqueof excessive material development echoes the socialist critique of the disparitybetween formal political equality and socio-economic inequality within capital-ism. Indeed, the findings of the ILO report not only strengthen sustainabilityarguments concerning the non-democratic and non-well-being contribution ofeconomic growth policies, but also the dangers of authoritarian positions.

Over 150 years ago Alexis de Tocqueville suggested that,

“General prosperity is favourable to the stability of all governments,but more particularly of a democratic one, which depends upon thewill of the majority, and especially upon the will of that portion of thecommunity which is most exposed to want. When the people rule,they must be rendered happy or they will overturn the state: andmisery stimulates them to those excesses to which ambition rouseskings.” (de Tocqueville 1824/1956, 129–30)

This assumption of the positive correlation between material affluence andthe stability of a democratic political order is one which is closely associated with‘modern’ political traditions such as liberalism and Marxism.17 In this sectionit is the negative corollary of this assumption, i. e. that material scarcity createsthe conditions for political instability and a shift to authoritarianism that will be

separation of a) liberalism from capitalism and b) the separation of democracy from currentlyliberal democratic forms.

17 Classical liberals such as Tocqueville assumed a relationship between an affluent economyand political democracy. One aspect of Tocqueville’s thought turns on the idea that, as Copp(1995, 3) points out, ‘a flourishing economy is essential to the stability of democracy, since itgives defeated politicians an alternative, which makes them more likely to accept defeat ratherthan attempt to illegally to hold on to office’. Classical Marxism, on the other hand, assumeda connection between ‘emancipation’ and material abundance. The roots of the differentunderstandings of the connection between the two may lie in the inter-relationship betweenthe logics and legacies of the Industrial and French Revolutions, understood as expressingthe core values of modernity, one relating to economic abundance and the other to politicaldemocracy.


examined. What can be called a ‘Hobbes-Malthus’ position underpins the ‘eco-authoritarian’ school of green thought, which in the literature is most closelyassociated with William Ophuls (1977), Garrett Hardin (1977) and Robert Heil-broner (1980). The eco-authoritarian implication of the link between scarcityand political arrangements has been forcefully made by Ophuls. He begins fromthe assumption that,

“The institution of government whether it takes the form of primitivetaboo or parliamentary democracy . . . has its origins in the necessityto distribute scarce resources in an orderly fashion. It follows thatassumptions about scarcity are absolutely central to any economic orpolitical doctrine and that the relative scarcity or abundance of goodshas a substantial and direct impact on the character of political,social and economic institutions.” (Ophuls 1977, 8)

Calling the affluence experienced by western societies over the last two hun-dred years or so ‘abnormal’, a material condition which has grounded individualliberty, democracy and stability, he concludes that with the advent of the eco-logical crisis, interpreted as a return to scarcity (following ‘the limits to growth’thesis), “the golden age of individualism, liberty and democracy is all but over. Inmany important respects we shall be obliged to return to something resemblingthe pre-modern closed polity.” (Ophuls 1977, 145)

These eco–authoritarian arguments can be countered if one focuses not oneconomic prosperity or growth as the main connection between democracy andindividual freedom and social and political stability, but on economic security.18In part, what this implies is that economic growth policies to be effective inpromoting the goal of economic security need to be connected to redistributiveand other policies. In particular, as well as supporting policies promoting jobsecurity (and job/skill satisfaction)19, and ones promoting income security withinemployment (such as minimum wage legislation), greens have also been long-standing advocates for income security outside the formal employment sphere,

18 An interesting and important point here would be research on the ‘optimum’ or range oflevels of affluence and its distribution needed to maximise individual liberty and create theconditions for a free society. Allied to this would be research looking at what would governmentpolicies that were aimed at maximising freedom and well-being look like if wealth creation wereseen explicitly as a means to those ends, rather than an end itself of public policy. Or equally,measuring wealth creation policies by reference to their impact on well-being and freedom.

19 Another of the ILO report’s findings was that one of the seven forms of work-relatedsecurity, skills security was “inversely related to well-being when jobs are poorly attuned tothe needs and aspirations of people, especially as they become more educated and acquiremore skills and competencies. At present, too many people are finding that their skills andqualifications do not correspond to the jobs they have to perform, resulting in a ‘status frus-tration’ effect”, International Labour Organisation, Security for a Better World . One of theclear implications of this is that the mantra that job creation per se is all that matters is onethat does not necessarily support economic security and the promotion of well-being. From apurely economistic and orthodox position promoting economic growth, employment creationis completely indifferent to the quality or the types of jobs that are being created. On thisorthodox economic view, short-term, low-paid, low-skilled jobs (‘McJobs’ or jobs in call-centresfor example) are to be judged as the same as skilled, highly-paid jobs with high levels of jobsatisfaction and job security.


through a universal, rights-based provision of a basic citizen’s income, and alsopromoting the basic claim that ‘work’ (socially useful, necessary but often in thenon-monetised and informal economy) should not be either conflated with nordeemed to be less socially valued than formally paid employment.20

Some notion of sufficiency would have to be harnessed to our understand-ing of economic security, if the concept is to adequately service our needs forboth social and environmental well being. In his work on The Logic of Suf-ficiency (2005), Thomas Princen, notes that the idea21 of sufficiency begins toshift to the principle of sufficiency when structure is needed for enactment, whenmore than sensory perception of “enoughness” or “too muchness” is needed torecognise excess and to act. Unlike the normatively neutral concepts of effi-ciency and cooperation, Princen contends that sufficiency as a principle aimedat ecological overshoot compels decision makers to ask when too much resourceuse or too little regeneration risks important values such as ecological integrityand social cohesion; “when material gains now preclude material gains in thefuture; when consumer gratification or investor reward threatens economic se-curity ; when benefits internalized depend on costs externalized” (Princen 2005,18: emphasis added). Meeting Herman Daly’s challenge22 head on, Princen setsout an argument for the installation of social organizing principles attentive torisks, especially those risks that are displaced in time and place, are desperatelyneeded in the belief that sufficiency principles (as opposed to mere efficiency)such as restraint, respite, precaution, polluter pays, zero, and reverse onus, havethe virtue of partially resurrecting well-established notions like moderation andthrift, ideas that have never completely disappeared.

11. Conclusion: Integrating Ecological Modernisation,Innovation and Economic Security?

Viewed in isolation EM can be painted as a reformist and limited strategy forachieving a more sustainable economy and society, and indeed questions couldbe legitimately asked as to whether the development of a recognisably ‘green’political economy for sustainable development can be based on it. In this paper,

20 In this way it is clear that the model of green political economy outlined here necessarilygoes beyond the conventional understanding of the ‘economy’ and moves in the direction ofan expansive view of the economy which includes the unpaid gendered caring work of womenand others, and non-market contributors to human well-being and quality of life.

21 Princen’s work sets out a number of real world examples where the logic of sufficiency hasalready been embraced by companies or communities as the basis of doing well. With exam-ples ranging from timbering and fishing to automobility and meat production, Princen showsthat sufficiency is perfectly sensible and yet absolutely contrary to modern society’s dominantprinciple, efficiency. He argues that seeking enough when more is possible is both intuitive andrational—personally, organizationally, and ecologically rational. And under global ecologicalconstraint, it is ethical. Over the long term, an economy—indeed a society—cannot operateas if there’s never enough and never too much.

22 Herman Daly and Kenneth Townsend (1993, 360–61) wrote: “It will be very difficult todefine sufficiency and build the concept [of sufficiency] into economic theory and practice. ButI think it will prove far more difficult to continue to operate [as if] there is no such thing asenough.”


it is contended that there are strategic advantages in seeking to build upon andradicalise EM. There are indications in the UK that the debate on sustainableconsumption may lead to new deliberative fora for a re-negotiation of the mean-ing and ends of consumption. Could it be that ‘sufficiency’ will emerge as thelogical complement (on the consumer side) of the early production-side debateon EM on the limits of ‘efficiency’ without an ecological context?

While there are various reasons one can give for this, in this conclusion wefocus on two—one normative/principled the other strategic.

From a strategic point of view, it is clear that, as Dryzek and his colleagueshave shown, if green and sustainability goals, aims and objectives are to beintegrated within state policy, these need to attach themselves to one of thecore state imperatives—accumulation/economic growth or legitimacy (Dryzeket al. 2003; Barry 2003b). It is clear that the discourse of EM allows (some)green objectives to be integrated/translated into a policy language and frame-work which complements and does not undermine the state’s core imperativeof pursuing orthodox economic growth. Therefore if (in the absence of a GreenParty forming a government or being part of a ruling coalition, or even moreunlikely of one of the main traditional parties initiating policies consistent witha radical understanding of sustainable development), the best that can be hopedfor under current political conditions is the ‘greening of growth and capitalism’i. e. a narrow, ‘business as usual’ version of EM. Or as Jonathan Porritt has putit, “We need more emphasis about the inherent unsustainability of our dominanteconomic model, even as we seek to improve the delivery of that model in theshort to medium term” (Porritt 2004, 5).23

On a more principled note, the adoption of EM as a starting point for thedevelopment of a model/theory of green political economy does carry with it thenot inconsiderable benefit of removing the ‘anti-growth’ and ‘limits to growth’legacy which has (in our view) held back the theoretical development of a posi-tive, attractive, modern conceptualisation of green political economy and radicalconceptualisations of sustainable development. Here the technological innova-tion, the role of regulation driving innovation and efficiency, the promise thatthe transition to a more sustainable economy and society does not necessarilymean completely abandoning currently lifestyles and aspirations—strategicallyimportant in generating democratic support for sustainable development, andas indicated above, importance if the vision of a green sustainable economy isone which promotes diversity and tolerance in lifestyles and does not demand

23 Porritt’s latest position is that what we need is to green capitalism, rather than seekingto overthrow or seek an alternative economic system through which to deliver sustainabledevelopment. In a recent article, he provocatively asks, “is there any variant of capitalismthat could ever deliver a genuinely sustainable economy? With the right kind of politicalleadership. With an unstoppable groundswell of public support. With sufficient buy-in fromtoday’s powerful business elites . . . There is no inherent, non-negotiable feature of capitalismthat makes it incapable, forever and in any set of circumstances, of delivering a genuinelysustainable economy. It all depends on what kind of capitalism we choose to throw in our lotwith. After all, capitalism is the archetypal malleable social construct, bending with the windaccording to circumstances, fitting its ephemeral form to the particular functions required ofit to fulfil what society desires.” (Porritt 2005)


everyone conform to a putative ‘green’ lifestyle. Equally, this approach does notcompletely reject the positive role/s of a regulated market within sustainable de-velopment. However, it does demand a clear shift towards making the promotionof economic security (and quality of life) central to economic (and other) policy.Only when this happens can we say we have begun the transition to implement-ing the principles of sustainable development rather than fruitlessly seeking forsome ‘greenprint’ of an abstract and utopian vision of the ‘sustainable society’.

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